Since I just got my copy of Chris Thompson’s Highland Broadsword from
Paladin press in the other day we started with a basic review of the
wards, cuts, footwork of the Regimental system and we practiced lesson
1.

Out with the longsword wasters…basic review of the wards and
mastercuts, only spending about 20 minutes here. Onto boxing…

Next up, sambo…we threw on our jackets and did two rounds of grip/balance work. Justin reminded me just how good the technique called cradling works for controlling your opponent.

We then worked a series of three throws to the lapel grab side. Normally if an arm is grabbed you want to throw in that direction since it is harder for them to post or catch themselves if you already have the arm…this time we went against this rule and threw to the side where you did not have an arm grip.
You can see the series of throws here:
We also worked on defending the standing guillotine.

Jackets off…knifes picked up! Inspired by James Loriega’s blog
we each grabbed a CS rubber knife and worked from extreme close quarters. We started our live knife fencing from an “in the grips position”. Luckily we are all right handed so easier to explain. Opponents grab the wrists of the knife hands. So we basically started out chest to chest. Very eye opening! Very messy but brutal.

We finished out the session working with the e-tool against it’s natural enemy…the bayonet.
Using some recently dredged old Soviet material, we went through and did some basic work against the thrust then we worked knife and e-tool against the thrust and lastly we worked two variations of throwing the e-tool and attacking with the knife against the bayonet.

Last Tuesday I worked out with Gov…lot’s of boxing, padwork and footwork. We then pulled out the mountain axes and did a little bouting with them. he also got his first taste of singlestick bouting. These two young fighters that train with me are going to be monters at singlestick or whatever weapon they choose, once they get the theory down. Their level of athleticism is way higher than most people have come across.

These guys are really soaking it up, especially the footwork that I am having them do, much more active than they are used to but they seem to be getting better each session.

On Monday Chris and I worked mostly on the concept of throwing your own short hook inside your opponents hook. I introduced him to this idea on Sunday towards the end of our session so I wanted to get right back at it again since he seemed a natural for this shot. This short hook was more akin to a corkscrew hook that just cut inside the angle and lands with a great rate. By the end of yesterdays session Chris was hitting about 50% of these in sparring which is awesome.

So no grappling and no weapons for over a week…sort of a bummer but we will have time aplenty for that. I had some killer sunburn any way so the idea of grappling was right out for me. It is nice seeing these guys improve like this, Hell I even get some great training in as well even though i am mostly in a coaching role when these guys come out.